Cicada Year

General Fruit Growing
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Brood XIII coming here to N IL , Brood XIX downstate IL. Some places in mid IL are supposed to get both.

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Cicadas are biological time capsules. Here is a not-so-biological time capsule:

LOCUST-LOVERS, ATTENTION!

| My attention has been recently focussedÂą
| Upon the seventeen year locust.
| This is the year
| When the seventeen-year locusts are here,
| Which is the chief reason my attention has been focussed
| Upon the seventeen year locust.
| Overhead, underfoot, they abound,
| And they have been seventeen years in the ground,
| For seventeen years they were immune to politics and class war and
capital taunts and labor taunts,
| And now they have come out like billions of insect debutantes,
| Because they think that after such a long wait,
| Why they are entitled to a rich and handsome mate,
| But like many another hopeful debutante they have been hoaxed and
hocuspocussed,
| Because all they get is another seventeen-year locust.
| Girl locusts don’t make any noise,
| But you ought to hear the boys.
| Boy locusts don’t eat, but it is very probable that they take a
drink now and again, and not out of a spring or fountain,
| Because they certainly do put their heads together in the treetops
and render Sweet Adeline and She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain,
| I for one get bewildered and go all hot and cold
| Everytime I look at a locust and realize that it is seventeen years
old;
| It is as fantastic as something out of H. G. Wells or Jules Verne or
G. A. Henty
| To watch a creature that has been underground ever since it hatched
shortly previous to 1920,
| Because locusts also get bewildered and go hot and cold because they
naturally expected to find Jess Willard still the champion,
| And Nita Naldi the vampion,
| And Woodrow Wilson on his way to Paris to promote the perpetually
not-yet-but-soon League,
| And Washington under the thumb of Wayne B. Wheeler and the
Anti-Saloon League,
| Indeed I saw one locust which reminded me of a godmotherless
Cinderella,
| Because when it emerged from the ground it was whistling Dardanella.
| Dear locusts, my sympathy for you is intense,
| Because by the time you get adjusted you will be defunct, leaving
nothing behind you but a lot of descendants who in turn will be
defunct just as they get adjusted seventeen years hence.

ÂąFocused

3 Likes
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Saw my first red-eye today

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So I’m outside thinning apples, and it occurs to me that I’m standing in a very fine mist of cidada piss.

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Gee, it must be 17 years since my motorcycle trip to southern Indiana. I remember waking up to a strange sound outside my tent at Turkey Run State Park. I couldn’t figure out what it was. I heard it off an on passing under trees along the road. It wasn’t until lunch on the courthouse square at Paoli that I saw THEM! They were everywhere over head and under foot. It was as though they were all talking to ME — inside my head. … a totally creepy experience.

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They’re gone now. Probably never see them again.